1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer readable program product storing a program for processing of a cursor display of a ball-playing type game using a joystick or other control device, such a program, and a ball-playing type game processor and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
At the present time, in sports types games, not only one-against-one contest games, but also group-against-group contest games have been realized such as tennis, soccer, basketball, American football, and baseball.
To play such sports type games, it is necessary to operate control units (control panels, keypads, etc.) provided in advance in an arcade machine or specialized game machine (PlayStation (made by Sony Computer Entertainment), Dreamcast (made by Sega Enterprise), etc.)
The control unit is in general comprised of a plurality of keys (or buttons) or a joystick. Whether a sports type game or a role-playing game, a control system comprised of a limited number of buttons and number of joysticks on a control unit is incorporated. Of course, a game can be played on even a personal computer. If using a keyboard, keys necessary for control of the game are assigned from the keyboard.
In baseball, soccer, basketball, and other ball-playing type games in sports type games, generally the movement of the ball itself cannot be controlled by the buttons or joystick. Instead, the user can control the motion of the player holding the ball or the movement of the player with respect to an incoming ball so as to indirectly control the direction or force of the next movement of the ball.
For example, in a baseball game, consider the case when the pitcher throws the ball in the direction of home base. In this case, a cursor is displayed inside a strike zone displayed on the screen or near it for designating the position of the thrown ball (hereinafter referred to as the "ball position"). This cursor is often displayed in the shape of a circle. The user can operate the joystick to make the cursor move on the display screen and designate any ball position.
To designate the above ball position, in general it is necessary to operate the joystick or other control device. As this type of technology, there is for example Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 10-105328. This publication discloses the art of using a conversion constant to convert from one coordinate value different from the conversion constant to another coordinate value when converting a position signal in accordance with the tilt position of the joystick to a two-dimensional coordinate value on the image. By using the conversion constant, it is possible to designate the ball position in the rectangular strike zone.
Summarizing the problem to be solved by the invention, in a baseball game, the strike zone includes portions where the ball position has to be accurately designated and portions where accurate designation is unnecessary. In a baseball game, the ball passing near the boundary of the strike zone and the outside of the strike zone (hereinafter referred to as the ball zone) sometimes is hard to hit solidly even if the batter were to swing. In such a case, for the user controlling the pitcher to prevent easy hits by the batter, it was necessary to accurately designate the ball position near the boundary between the strike zone and the ball zone.
In the above-mentioned Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 10-105328, however, since the tilt position of the control device was converted to a position on the screen using a conversion constant, no difference at all could be observed in control of the ball position either near the outer periphery of the strike zone where the batter has a hard time hitting the ball or at the center portion of the strike zone. Therefore, even if trying to control the ball position with respect to the pitcher's best pitch near the boundary between the strike zone and outside the zone, fine adjustment of the ball position was not possible and fine control of the desired ball position was difficult.
On the other hand, in the batting zone, the general practice for the batter is to swing at the center portion of the zone rather than swing near the boundary between the zone and outside the zone.